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As stark as its title, Butcher is a play that tests its own actors as much as the audience.

Kristina Hughes plays the nurse-translator Elena in the war crime play by Nicolas Billon. The experience is so tense it prompted director Del Surjik to urge his actors take care of themselves on off-hours, to “wash away the work.”

Lavinia. It’s the Slavic country where the alleged crimes took place. It’s not on any map. “That means it’s any country. You end up having a broader discussion about themes rather than geography,” says Hughes.

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Lavinian. A special language created for the play by two linguistics professors. “My unilingual tongue has never had to make some of these sounds. Normally when I’m in the process of learning lines, I’ll have a section that plays, like when you get a song stuck in your head. But I have them in Lavinian this time.”

Secrets. “The characters find out a lot of information over the course of the hour and a half and the audience finds out at the same time. At no point is the audience ahead of the characters.”

Chip Chuipka. He last performed in the play in the fall of 2015 at Centaur Theatre in Montreal. “He’s absolutely dedicated to the details on how to get it right, making sure all the pieces of the story tie together,” says Hughes. The play also features Joshua Beaudry, Jaron Francis and Nicole Cramatte.

Shock. “I can’t wait for our audience to see it. I know that for some people, it will be triggering. There are those people who will have to shut down while they’re watching it. But for other people it will open up a debate about things that are really relevant right now,” Hughes says.

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